NASCAR has announced the next group of 25 nominees from which the next five historic figures to be inducted into its 2013 Hall of Fame in Charlotte will be chosen. We’re betting that the most buzz will come from the first-time inclusion of Wendell Scott on the nominee list.

Scott was at once one of NASCAR’s most heroic and sorrowful individuals. He was not the first black driver to attempt Southern stock car racing, but unquestionably owns the most enduring and heart-rending legacy of any African-American in the sport. Scott was running moonshine and building engines for “likker” cars around his native Danville, Virginia, when a bullring promoter decided to put him in a stock car field as an attraction. What nobody figured on was how good he was. By around 1960, he was a top runner in Modifieds along the Virginia-North Carolina border.

Then came NASCAR, where Scott was far better than expected despite having to run hand-me-down equipment, endure racial taunts from fans and haul across the segregated Jim Crow South. His wife, Mary, was famous for packing huge, delicious lunches, which were actually a necessity because many restaurants en route to the tracks would not serve African-Americans. Scott’s one win came in 1961 on the mile dirt at Speedway Park in Jacksonville, Florida. In the closing laps, Scott passed Richard Petty and took the checkered first. The officials, however, awarded the win to Buck Baker, only to reverse themselves several hours later and give it to Scott. The widely disseminated story is that nobody wanted a crowd of Southerners to see a black driver kissing a white beauty queen in Victory Lane.

Scott’s family later received a small wooden trophy with no inscription. He continued to drive until 1973, when he received near-fatal injuries in a high-speed pileup at Talladega Superspeedway. Scott died in 1990 of spinal cancer. In the last several years, and particularly since NASCAR opened its $160 million Hall of Fame in Charlotte, there has been a revival of interest in Scott’s career and legacy. A lot of it has been in the form of editorial criticism of his exclusion from the first three lists of 25 nominees, in forums that have ranged from Southern journals to The New York Times. NASCAR remains America’s whitest sport, with only one minority member, Juan Pablo Montoya of Colombia, competing at its top levels. Given NASCAR’s ongoing diversity programs, the contradiction has been obvious.

The final class of nominees will be chosen May 23, amid activity in Charlotte for the Sprint All-Star Race and the Coca-Cola 600. For more information on the NASCAR Hall of Fame – and for the full list of nominees, which includes Baker, Fireball Roberts, Rusty Wallace, and Rick Hendrick – visit NASCARHall.com.

I watched Wendell Scott race, more than once, at Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway(Now RIR) back in the early sixties. He was a good driver on a shoestring. When the other drivers would arrive with transporters and a phalanx of support personnel, Scott would come rolling in with his race car on a trailer pulled by an old Cadillac ambulance or hearse. While I never heard hateful remarks made about him, the white fans around me seemed never to take his efforts seriously. I don’t believe he ever really had a chance for success.

The nomination and admission of both Fireball Roberts and Wendell Scott are long overdue.
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Fireball was a NASCAR hero, dying all-too-soon due to a flaming wreck before safety gas tanks were allowed.

Wendell was indeed a pioneer. Not only did he buck the color-barrier; he had a particularly tough job as a competitor since he drove and was his own mechanic. I recall a 1960s captioned photo of him having to get out of this car during a pit stop at a NASCAR race to work on his car.
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Hard Driving “The Wendell Scott Story” is a carefully researched and well written biography by investigative journalist and Nobel Prize winning author Brian Donovan. Donovan is himself an amateur racer which surely added to his determination to get the story right. I highly recommend it to every fan of auto racing.

The 1977 movie Greased Lightening starring Richard Pryor and Beau Bridges doesn’t do justice to Wendell Scott nor does it accurately portray what it was like to live in the Jim Crow segregated South. For years Scott was refused entry for the Darlington, SC Southern 500. Bob Colvin, Darlington’s president was a resolute segregationist. Author Donovan quotes Tom Kirkland, Darlington’s official photographer as stating that Colvin told him if a black driver won the Southern 500 that driver would “never make it to victory lane. He was a complete racist.” Scott finished tenth in his first Southern 500 after finally being allowed to compete in 1965.

It’s great to see Scott getting well deserved recognition even if it comes too late for him to be present. He was a far better driver than many thought and a racer through and through enduring rough times, and continuing when a lesser man would have thrown in the towel.

I remember watching from the paddock area behind the pits during the 1963 World 600 when he pitted, climbed out of his car to join his small pit crew before rejoining the race – finishing in 20th he collected $550. But he finished the ’63 season with 15 top 10 finishes and 15th overall in Grand National point standings.

I hope one day we can read about sports without the race of the competitors being noted. It’s a shame to read that this sport or that sport is the “whitest” or the “blackest” in the Year 2012. I hope for a world where nobody takes any special note if an athlete is black or white, or if the league they compete in has more of one race than another. NASCAR is impossible to participate in for anybody without big dollars, white or black, man or woman. Equal opportunity to scramble for money exists today. There is no guaranteed equal outcome for anybody of any color of skin. There is no quota to get to the starting grid. That is part of the competition: getting there. Wendell Scott is a hero to me. He stands for more than his race. He stands for all us little guys who want to get on the grid. He did.

Why don’t you get out and fight for equality, rather than just wishing everyone would stop TALKING about injustice? See, I’m hearing this more and more: “Let’s call it even while our side is still way ahead”

If some folks are uncomfortable talking about past and present injustices, they THEY have a problem that THEY need to correct.

The best way for us to end the talk of injustice and inequality would be to end the condition. Thankfully, each generation is more and more open to the idea of equality. Eventually, the haters will die off, taking most of the problem with them.

Wendells story is nice, but is there any other reason for him being nominated other than he was black? One win, inferior equipment, drove to the races and did the wrenching, driving, etc. Come on, no business going into the hall of fame. Countless other drivers did what he did and won more races. Granted he had to face racism that no other drivers had to face, but thats not a reason to put him into the hall. Sorry.

What if he weren’t black, is what you’re asking, right? So ask if he had all the advantages of a white driver – admission to races, sponsorships, crew, standard equipment. Then how many races would he have won?

Danno, I agree with your sentiments. However, “if he had all the advantages of a white driver” is a bit too sunny a view of what was/is the access to ANY driver of ANY color. I’ve done some pro racing and rallying. I won’t mention my skin color here, because IMHO it is irrelevant in the Year 2012. (Or it ought to be!) But there is a “White Race Driver Packet” the white boys can go pick up from the France family, or IndyCar, or IMSA, or the FIA. It doesn’t exist, and never has. YES, there has been horrible racial prejudice (Cap’n Obvious cape on), but that is action against someone. There’s never been a white race promotional package given out, unless the Grand Wizard of the Invisible Empire offered it. White boys clawed each others’ eyes out, shot at each other, clubbed each other, and crashed each other into the wall to step over the carcass of their competition. Wendell belongs in the HOF alright. He was a pioneer and opened a lot of hearts and minds. As said = hero.

True, most things aren’t just black and white, and I concede that my response was oversimplified. Perhaps I should restate my question: If Scott didn’t have the disadvantages of a black driver, how many races would he have won?

I maintain that there is no such thing as colorblindness in American society, and while it’s true there is no official White Race Driver Packet, color-line pioneers such as Scott start off with incredible disadvantages that the entrenched (and thus advantaged) participants have difficulty perceiving.

So is Janet Guthrie next in line for the hall? Minority, inferior equipment, poor sponsorship, sexism, etc. Never won a race but was a “trail blazer”. Equality eh? Where are all the black drivers that came after him? Where are the black crew members, black owners, black fans? NASCAR is a white sport, Wendell didnt do much to change that.

First – Women competed in the very first Nascar races in 1949. Sara Christian who was inducted into the Georgia Automobile Racing Hall of Fame in 2004 was touted in early Nascar literature as “The Leading Woman Stock Car Driver in The Country. She not only competed in Nascar race number one at Charlotte’s 3/4 mile dirt track, but she was one of three women racers at race number four, Langhorne, PA. Curtis Turner won at Langhorne in a ’49 Olds. Sara Christian finished sixth in her ’49 Olds. Lee Petty was seventh. Sara gained a top 5 finish at Heidelberg Raceway in Pittsburgh in ’49. It was not until July 4th, 1977 (nearly three decades later) at the Firecracker 400 when once again three women, Janet Guthrie, Christine Beckers, and Lella Lombardi contested a Nascar race.

Second – One must know and understand the ugly part of American history which was the Jim Crow South and how carefully Wendell Scott had to thread the ever moving needle to avoid possible violence. Simply stopping at a service station en route to repair the tow car was fraught with possible danger. As to the comment “countless other drivers did what he did…granted he had to face racism” it infers racism was a minor annoyance. It was not. Wendell Scott is a hero. Jackie Robinson is a hero. However Robinson was welcomed into Major League Baseball sixty five years ago. Wendell had to fight tooth and nail for a position in a highly competitive association that certainly did not welcome him with open arms. There were many who helped and that’s part of Scott’s life story, but there’s also the fact that Bill France would not intervene at times when he should have. Darlington is a case in point. This Nascar driver was for years refused entry due to the color of his skin.

A Nascar hero of mine is Smokey Yunick – more for his being a B17 driver (his word choice) during WW II and his response to the poverty he witnessed in Italy along with his revulsion at the wealth within the Vatican which was not used to aid those Italians near starvation. Of course his ability to redefine Nascar rules to suit was impressive. I recommend that everyone read his book, “Best Damn Garage in Town”.

For insight of the thirties to the early fifties and individuals escaping the Jim Crow South “The Warmth of Other Suns” by Isabel Wilkerson, Pulitzer Prize winning author, daughter of a Tuskegee Airman is an excellent choice. Ten years of dedicated research went into this book. Among the lives she documents is that of Robert Joseph Pershing Foster a 1953 transplant from Monroe, LA to Los Angeles. Newly released from active duty the Air Force Captain, an accomplished surgeon driving a late model Buick across the country, but turned away from getting a room at the inn because of the color of his skin. Dr. Foster would later, through surgery, save the career of his most famous patient, Ray Charles. Ray Charles recorded a song about Dr. Foster.

To highlight several lesser known events that occurred in the fifties and sixties in the heart of Nascar country only about 30 miles from famed Nascar shops and the Charlotte Motor Speedway one can watch the Negroes with Guns, the Robert Williams Story which was featured on PBS. It helps to understand that in the 1958 Monroe, NC Kissing Case two black boys ages 8 and 10 were sentenced to reform school till they turned 21 as the result of a white girl kissing one of the boys in an innocent game. Their story begins at the 7:40 mark. Robert Williams is a lesser known civil rights activist who was falsely charged with kidnapping and had to flee the country. His book “Negroes with Guns” has a shocking title, but documents his efforts to gain access to the public swimming pool for black kids, assisting in getting the kissing game boys released and more. The county bulldozed the bath house, filled in and buried the pool finally to prevent access to all county residents. It is worth watching the full 52 minutes though one might ignore the first 20 seconds and final 3 or 4 seconds of music that was added by those who uploaded the video to YouTube. One cannot separate Wendell Scott’s story from the reality of this time in American life. Robert Williams – Negroes with Guns: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpOEgk9yY0g

I recall as a kid at both the Asheville – Weaverville Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway, the one driver that received the loudest cheers during driver introductions was, yep, Wendell Scott. There were cheers for drivers usually according to the brand they drove, or Petty fans, Lorenzen fans, but everyone was a Wendell Scott fan. Everyone knew what he was up against, but week after week he was there. My dad, brother and I always made the trip down to the pits AFTER the races at Asheville – Weaverville to see Wendell. Always a kind word and a little extra time for us my brother and me. He has been in my personal Hall of Fame since about 1965. Petty didn’t make it until 1967.

I have to go along with Strohl.Wendell was popular because he was pure grass roots and driven.He did a lot with next to nothing in backing or equipment.That he got as far as he did and as long as he did is noteworthy in itself.

There will not be another like him in todays nascar which is no different than the WWF of the 80s.Nothing but big dollar billboards rolling around the track with the france family rigging the rules on a daily basis.They would never let someone like Wendell in today because he had No Money backing him.